Starchild
by The White Namek
Summary: Freeza has one last chance to repent for his evil deeds.


Author's note: This Alternate Universe fic contains some **GRAPHIC VIOLENCE**, so be aware of this as you read. The song lyrics near the end belong to _Return To Innocence_ by Enigma, so don't give me credit for its use. And while we're at it...I don't own DBZ or its chars(except Samusa, who is my creation), so don't sue me. O_o I don't have any money anyway. 

__

Starchild

~*~*~*~

Black feminine lips, framed by pale flesh, parted as a sigh issued forth from between them. Red tinted glass glinted in the light. Purple armor flashed briefly. Ruby-colored eyes opened and twinkled dangerously. Pale fingers with black fingernails rippled in endless agitation. A white tail twitched to and fro as three-toed feet paced back and forth.

Freeza waited impatiently with his arms crossed by the large, round main window that gave him a view outside from his ship. His quaint face held no expression as he gazed out at the tropical rainforest-like landscape, most of which was now destroyed, a trademark 'Freeza was here' type of thing. Zarbon had gone out for the last fuel resources and had yet to return; he was late, and Freeza hated it when people weren't punctual. He resumed pacing, counting the times he passed his bed and losing count after passing it for the ten-thousandth time.

With another irritated sigh, Freeza levitated off the floor and stared outside. He tried to ignore the annoying headache brewing under his scalp. He had awakened that morning to the faint throbbing in the top of his head and the ache had spread all the way down the back of his skull. The vision in his left eye had been blurry all day long, but he'd ignored it, figuring that he was just having another migraine. For him, migraines were a common thing because of all the constant stress he was under. Over the past three days, he had also been a little dizzy and tipsy as if slightly drunk. One of his men had brought it to his attention and he killed that person for prying into his business.

Just as Freeza was about to go into the side chamber to relieve himself, the door hissed open and he twitched his tail when he saw Zarbon's reflection in the window. "Report!" He barked without turning around, his tone harsh and filled with annoyance.

"Sir...they destroyed the fuel and themselves before I could stop them." Zarbon gulped, his heart starting to pound as he awaited the verbal bashing that he was about to get.  
  
"Zarbon you fool! Can I not count on you to do anything?!" Freeza roared. Then he stopped talking as he felt a jolt of pain in his head, and a sudden wave of nausea swept over him. He lowered from where he was hovering and sat down in his hoverpod, his fists clenched angrily. His left hand was trembling as if it were weaker then his right. He could see flashes in his left eye, as if someone was flashing a strobe light right in its outer corner. The flashes spread until half of his vision was completely white. "Get us off this piece of crap of a planet." Freeza sighed ruefully and touched a hand to his aching forehead, annoyed by the bright whiteness in his eye. He tore his scouter off, flung it across the room and proceeded to rub his left eye with the palm of his hand.

"Yes, Master Freeza. Um, sir? Are you not well?" Asked Zarbon when he noticed his master's left eyelid was starting to droop a little.

"Just get out of my sight." Freeza hissed as the nausea increased, the whiteness in his eye faded and the pain centered on the right side of his head. "NOW!!!!"

Zarbon quickly got up and left, and within moments, the ship was taking off. The vibration from the liftoff was enough to make Freeza's stomach revolt. Fortunately he was able to get into his private chamber before his lunch escaped. He relieved himself afterwards, washed up and headed back out to sit in his hoverpod. The pain in his head was still agonizing, and his walking steps were a little unsteady. 

__

If this migraine doesn't go away soon, I'll just take some painkillers... The tyrant thought silently. Beads of sweat formed all along the sides of his pale face. _Perhaps I'll just take it easy for a few days until I feel better. Papa won't like it, but screw him. He's on the other end of the galaxy anyway...so who cares?_

Freeza spent another few moments watching the stars pass his window. A bored sigh escaped him as he ordered one of his men to bring him a bottle of wine and a glass. The frightened servant obeyed the order, did the necessary tasks without question and hightailed back out as fast as his legs would carry him.

"What an coward..." Muttered Freeza while he poured the delicious red liquid into the glittering clear glass. His left hand and arm suddenly felt very heavy, and the wineglass slipped out of his grasp. "Huh!?" He went to shoot his arm out and grab for the glass. The limb twitched heavily like the muscles inside were made of lead instead of soft tissue. "I guess I'm just tired..." the alien turned his hoverpod towards the bed and climbed in, once again ignoring the heavy feeling all over his left side. "A few hours sleep can't hurt."  
  
  
  
Freeza awoke four hours later to an odd sensation. The vision in his left eye was completely gone. Half of his tongue was numb, and it was very hard to swallow. His entire left side was completely numb and immobile. He looked across the room at his scouter and immediately began to wish he hadn't thrown it, because he couldn't get to his hoverpod. Even his ability to gather his ki had failed him, preventing him from levitating to the small device.

__

What is happening to me!? Am I dying!? No...this can't be real...it can't! I'm stronger than this! Freeza thought as he groaned and used his right arm and leg to push himself off the bed. The cold metal floor greeted his right side like a hard slap in the face, unforgiving and without pity. Blood leaked from his bitten tongue as he inched slowly along the ground, moving his arm, then his leg to push and pull himself along, and his crippled limbs just dragged uselessly behind. 

When he finally reached the scouter, it felt like reaching for miles when it was really just an arm's length. His tapered fingers closed around the screen as he dragged it close to his face and touched the communications button.

Zarbon was in his quarters, eating a plate-full of something resembling purple pasta with a powdery white substance sprinkled on top when his scouter beeped. He slurped a long purple noodle into his mouth, swallowed without chewing and reached up to tap the com button, "Zarbon here."

The sound of heavy breathing greeted his ear, followed by a raspy voice, "Z'bon...muh q'turs..."

He blinked, took a sip of wine to wash down the spicy taste of his food and wiped his mouth with a napkin, "Master Freeza? I can hardly understand what you're saying. Is something the matter?"

There was a faint groan and more heavy breathing. It was followed by the same garbled words, "Z'bon, muh q'turs..."

By stopping a moment to try and translate the slurred words, Zarbon was able to determine Freeza was trying to say 'Zarbon, my quarters'. He realized the problem wasn't the scouter after all and quickly tapped the button. "Lord Freeza, I'll be there right away. Don't move from wherever you are."

Zarbon didn't know what to expect as he forgot about his dinner, left his quarters and raced down the corridor to the large door leading to Freeza's room. The door slid open to reveal a figure with white skin lying facedown near the opposite wall. His eyes went wide, and he let out a faint gasp when he realized the person on the floor with his fingers curled around a scouter was actually Freeza.

Zarbon, still in shock, dashed forward and knelt down to touch Freeza's neck. When he confirmed that the Icejin was still alive, he reached up and tapped his scouter, "We have a medical emergency. It's Freeza. Get in here immediately." He looked back down at Freeza when he heard him moan. 

"D' lea'me..." Freeza mumbled through clenched teeth. He appeared to be on the verge of bursting into tears, something very unlike him.

"I don't plan on it, sir." Acting quickly, Zarbon grasped Freeza under the armpits and sat him up against the wall. Then he grabbed a white sheet right off of the nearby bed, moved back over to Freeza and covered him to help preserve at least some of his dignity. Freeza kept trying to get up, so Zarbon placed a hand on his shoulder to hold him down until help arrived. "Stay calm and don't try to move, Master Freeza. Help is on the way."  
  
Freeza clenched his teeth the best he could and growled angrily, the right side of his face drawing up into an agonized expression while the left side remained expressionless. He wanted to break something, to pound someone until they were worse off than he was, but he couldn't even move.

A crowd was starting to gather outside Freeza's door, all of them staring in at their master's fallen frame. Zarbon gave them a glare and moved to the Icejin's other side, shrouding him from their view. He caught Freeza's hand when it rose to throw the sheet off. It wasn't hard to pin it to the floor and hold it down. "Sir, please, stop trying to move!"

Freeza responded by spitting angrily in Zarbon's face, the only attack he had left. Zarbon just turned his head so the eye-damaging spittle landed on his cheek, and tilted his head so he could use his shoulder to wipe it off.

Medical technicians arrived with a gurney and pushed through the crowd of people gathering just outside Freeza's quarters. Freeza found himself being lifted onto the gurney and carried into the medical bay with people touching him, asking questions and poking with needles. He vomited all over one of the medical technicians when she managed to get him rolled onto the examining table, and he was so panicked that he had to be sedated so the emergency technicians could work on him.  
  
Zarbon was left out in the corridor, dazed and confused. He finally headed into his own quarters to contact King Kold and Cooler.  
  
  
  
"No way!" Cooler cried when he got the message in a manner much like e-mail from Zarbon. His dark lips pulled back into a grimace, his pale teeth contrasting with his dark purple flesh. "I can't believe this! He's just a freaking kid! I seriously hope this is a joke - "

"What is it?" King Kold stood up from his throne and frowned, his black lips parting to form the words, "Is something the matter?"

"It's Freeza...he's having...or just had...a cerebro-vascular accident..." Cooler gasped, his voice still full of disbelief.

"WHAT?!"

"The message says we should get to him ASAP." Cooler crumpled the paper printout and threw it across the room angrily. He couldn't believe it. "We should get going and see just how bad this really is. They'll be landing here within the hour."

Kold flipped his cape over his shoulder and sneered as the light glinted off his blue armor. His face offered no clues as to what he was really feeling as he folded his muscular arms and said in a flat tone. "Contact Samusa before we go. If this is bad as I think it is...."

Cooler blinked and turned to face his father. "But...you haven't spoken to mother in over a hundred years! Freeza hasn't seen her since he was five..."

"Do NOT second guess me, dammit! Just do it!"

"Yes, father."  
  
  
  
A lovely Icejin woman sat in meditation on a distant planet, light from candles surrounding her slender frame glittering gently on the purple carapace of her forehead. She had a bony scalp identical to Cooler's, and her flawless pale skin was light pink, just like Freeza's first form. 

Samusa took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly as her com system beeped, alerting her to an incoming message. She reached over and opened the channel.

"Samusa..." Kold's face appeared on the screen with a grim expression.

"So you FINALLY decided to talk to me?" Samusa commented sarcastically. Her and Kold had divorced each other over a century before, just because she refused to hang around and participate in the evil he was doing. Unfortunately, her children were both boys, and fathers raised the sons while the mothers raised the daughters, so she could not take her children with her. The last time Samusa had seen her children, Cooler was a young adolescent and Freeza was just a toddler.

"Samusa, please. It's Freeza." Kold's expression didn't change. Usually when he was stone faced, he was really upset.

Samusa's carapace caught the light as she stood to her full nine foot height. "What?! What happened?"

"He's had a stroke. I don't know how bad it is, but you should come and see him...I'm heading there now."

"But he's so young...why would he have a stroke?" Samusa's heart jumped as she crossed her arms across her purple armor, which was similar to Freeza's, except it showed off her voluptuous cleavage to it's best advantage.

Kold didn't answer right away. "Too much...pressure..."

Samusa had heard enough. Her dark lips parted and she said, "I'm coming."  
  
  
  
Kold awaited the arrival of Freeza's ship, his cape fluttering around behind him as he paced impatiently in the loading dock. Every passing second seemed like hours, but the ship finally docked and Zarbon came running out as soon as the landing clamps were in place. 

A gurney surrounded by technicians went rattling by so fast that nobody got a chance to identify the person lying in it. The gurney disappeared around the corner and headed into the emergency medical bay.  
  
"Well?" Barked Kold as he faced the aqua-skinned alien, his muscular chest bulging under his armor from the very force of his deep voice. "Start talking! How bad is it?"

Zarbon knelt down immediately in respect and lowered his head until his shiny green braid was brushing the ground. "It's bad, your Highness...Freeza can't speak, his left eye is blind and his entire left side and tail are paralyzed. His right side is very weak, and he is still coherent."

King Kold's tail whipped up and slapped down on the ground so forcefully that it caused a very small quake as the armored tip dug into the metal floor. "Dammit! Such a waste!" He growled.

"No, it's a tragedy." Samusa cut in as she stepped into view, her transparent veil-like cloak flowing around her as if it had a life of it's own. "My baby is sick."

"Freeza's not a baby anymore." Kold stated harshly, crossing his large arms for the billionth time. He couldn't help but eye Samusa's curves briefly, thinking how easily he could fall in love with her all over again. Freeza's first form may have resembled his father's body shape, but his face looked just like his mother's. Same eyes, same delicate nose and especially the same mouth. Not even his fourth form could disguise the resemblance.

Oftentimes, other Icejin females looked at Freeza said he was pretty rather then handsome; when he was real little he looked more like a girl then a boy. Other boys, including Cooler for a short period, loved to make fun of him because of this. The only thing his 'tormentors' managed to get right was the 'momma's boy' joke, just because whenever Freeza was teased, he would run into his mother's arms.

"He'll always be my baby. No matter how old he is." Samusa replied, snapping Kold out of his reverie.

Zarbon politely remained silent and tried not to stare at Samusa's curves as Cooler came out of the shadows, his eyes wide in disbelief at the sight of his mother. She had actually come! 

"Mom!"

Samusa turned and her cloak fluttered out behind her. "Cooler! Oh look at you!" She cried, then held her arms out to him, and he stepped into her embrace. "You're all grown up..." She turned her head and kissed his cheek as she placed a hand on the back of his head. "Look at how handsome you are..."

"Mom...it's been so long..." Cooler breathed in and sighed against her shoulder, unconsciously clutching at her cloak the way he did when he was young. He didn't realize he was blushing, and his skin color made it very hard to tell anyway.

Samusa rubbed Cooler's back as she hugged him. "Have you seen Freeza yet?"

"No. Shall we go then?" Cooler replied, turning his head to glance at his father, the light catching the blue carapace on his forehead. Then he looked to Zarbon to lead the way.

Zarbon jumped to his feet and briskly started walking inside the palace where King Kold and his family lived. Of course the family knew the way, but since Zarbon was Freeza's second in command, it was tradition that he led the way. En route, he explained what the doctors had found, "Apparently he had an aneurysm that didn't affect him at all. Then it ruptured and had been bleeding for several hours before the symptoms arose. But that isn't the worst part." He paused, "The aneurysm was caused by a major blood clot, and if there's one, there could be more." He let out an exasperated sigh. "He was in such a panic that we had to sedate him so we could work."

Samusa rushed ahead when she heard this, practically shoving Zarbon aside as she entered the medical bay. She grabbed the first technician, a blue fishlike man, and pulled him aside. "Where is Freeza?!" She demanded.

The frightened technician nervously pointed to a huddle of doctors and ran off like a bat out of hell when Samusa released him. Samusa ignored him and hurried to the huddle of doctors that was just starting to break up. She stopped short, Cooler and Kold coming to her side, as she looked upon her youngest son for the first time in so long.

Despite the changes the stroke had done to him, Freeza still looked just like he did when he was a baby, just bigger and with muscles instead of baby fat. Spasms were causing his right arm to tremble, his delicate pale hand trembling as it rested on his chest. The left side of his face was visibly sagging, his girlish black lips hanging partly open and drawn down into an unnatural expression. His left eye wasn't opening or moving at all, but his right eye was open halfway and had an odd glaze to it as it stared straight ahead. Freeza had all sorts of monitors beeping around him. He was small already, but he looked even smaller while in the huge bed he was lying on, his paralyzed limbs all propped slightly with pillows.

"Oh my God..." Cooler breathed when he saw his little brother like that. Usually he didn't care if someone else was suffering, but this was family.

Samusa went forward immediately, not caring if her son was conscious or not. She placed her hand on his right cheek so he would feel it and whispered to him, "Look at you...all grown up too..." A few tears spilled from her eyes, glistening like morning dew on her delicate pale cheeks. "What a handsome young man you've become, such a precious face..."

Freeza's heart lurched at the voice, his wandering right eye slowly turning and focusing on Samusa's face. It seemed to take great effort for him to just keep it in place. He audibly gasped in surprise, the right half of his lips trembling and twitching until he managed to barely choke out, "Ummma?"

Samusa understood what he'd said, since the sound he'd made was the "word" he used when he was little before he could speak. She caressed the side of his face gently and whispered, "Shhh, don't try and talk right now. I'm here now and I'm not going to leave you again."

Slowly, Freeza raised a trembling hand to touch her face, as if to see if she was really there or not. Then his head turned mechanically so he could fix his good eye on Cooler and Kold. A look of dread came to him when he spotted his father, and he seemed to sag even more as he let his hand slide away from Samusa's face, his lips twitching again as he mumbled, "Puh-puh...Cuh-er." All his attempts to say anything decent were failing. It was like his body was a machine that had malfunctioned; he could send a command to speak, knowing clearly what he wanted to say, but the command got messed up when it reached his mouth and nothing could come out right.  
  
"Hey, calm down, Freeza." Cooler walked over next to his mother. "It's OK. Everybody has a bad day now and then."

Freeza gave an indignant snort in response to that remark. His lips parted slightly and a few drops of saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth. Samusa tenderly reached over and brushed it away with a corner of the sheet, and he turned his eye to look up at her.

Kold walked over and loomed at the foot of the bed with his arms still crossed. His face was stoic, his eyes offering no clue as to what he was really feeling. So nobody knew that deep down in his subconscious mind, his heart was breaking. The large being didn't speak, he just looked at Freeza for several moments, then turned to the door and walked out, his cape fluttering behind him and his tail lashing back and forth.

"Cooler. Come on." Kold remarked from the door without turning around.

Cooler nodded towards Kold, then looked back at Freeza. He put his hand on his little brother's shoulder and said, "Hey, hang in there. Its going to be OK. I'm rooting for you."

Freeza responded by grabbing Cooler's hand and squeezing down as hard as he could. His grip wasn't even as strong as a newborn's. Cooler squeezed back carefully, as if doing it too hard would break his brother's hand, then released his grip and left with Kold. A technician followed them out and stopped them in the main hallway.

"What?" Kold hissed in an acid tone, his voice alone seeming as if it could burn through a planet.

"I need to talk to you about your son's condition."

He blinked and frowned, "You look familiar...What is your name?"

"Strats." Answered the technician, a brown haired alien with blue skin and antennae where he should have had a mustache. 

Kold's eyes narrowed on Strats's face. _I remember that fool now...he helped Samusa give birth to Freeza..._

"Now..." Strats pulled out a little tube and turned on a hologram, which looked like a 3-D version of a CAT-scan image and started to point at things. "Freeza had a stroke somewhere up here where co-ordination and speech are controlled. But that's not all..."

"Then what else is there?" Cooler urged Strats to continue.

Strats pushed a button and the image rotated until they were all looking at the back of Freeza's brain, highlighting a main artery that ran from the center of his brain and down his spinal cord. Some round yellow spheres appeared along the highlighted artery to signify something. "The main artery to his spinal cord is throwing off clots and has been swelling. This swelling has been taking place over several years, and an impact to the lower spine caused blood to clot. Freeza's been throwing off these clots for many years and they've finally managed to get into his brain, the first one caused an aneurysm that ruptured because of the blockage." Strats highlighted the yellow spheres, and they seemed to continue down that major artery to the main yellow area. "All these yellow spots here are blood clots that haven't blocked the blood flow yet. The red one is where the first stroke happened." He pointed to it, "But it's started a chain reaction of swelling that can't be stopped."

Kold's face lost all expression once again and Cooler clenched his fists tightly in disbelief.  
  
"So what's going to happen?" Cooler hissed, taking in a deep breath as if bracing himself. Already, he felt like someone had socked him in the chest.

"The clots and swelling will worsen until he has a series of strokes that will destroy his brain and end his life. The blood-flow is already gone and the damage is sweeping through his brain like a wildfire." Strats gulped slowly, the antennae on his upper lip twitching slightly. "There is nothing that can be done...I'm sorry."

Cooler seemed to have expected this, but Kold hadn't. He shouted a series of vulgarities that would scare his own mother if she were still alive. Then he turned and left the area as fast as possible, leaving Strats and Cooler standing there stunned that anyone could talk that way.  
  
  
  
Samusa listened to Freeza mumbling over and over again about how his father was going to really get angry about this and how he was supposed to be ruler of the universe. Then he did something totally unusual; something he hadn't done since he was a child. It was mostly because of the intense pain his crippled limbs were in, but also because he knew he was useless and the fact that the stroke had affected his emotions.

The warlord, the 'all-mighty', 'all powerful' Freeza started to cry. Once the tears started, he couldn't stop them or the sobs that began to follow. When Samusa heard him, she looked down at him and touched his hand. "Shhh, it'll be OK, Freeza..."  
  
"Uh d'n wun bih 'iz w-wuh..." He cried, trying to say 'I don't want to be this way'.

Samusa pulled a technician that had just given Freeza some pain medication aside and asked if it was OK if she held him. The technician said that she could, so she quickly returned to Freeza's side and took his sobbing frame into her arms, holding his head with one hand and the rest of his body with the other, as if he were a newborn.

"Hush. I know you don't." She bent her head down and kissed his forehead, then his cheek. She rocked back and forth with him in her arms and rested her cheek against his as he fell silent again, safe in the arms of his mother. "I remember the day you were born. I held you like this...you were so tiny and precious. I remember seeing you open your eyes and smile at me."

Freeza tried to smile at his mother when she said that, but only the right half of his mouth would move. At that point he didn't care anymore, he just wanted her to see how happy he was to see her again. Samusa smiled back down at him to show she understood. 

She offered him a little drink of water, but he could only swallow a few drops at a time. It took him about five minutes just to drink a teaspoon-sized amount of water from the little plastic cup. He finally got so frustrated that he just spit the water out all over the place. Obviously, since she was a mother, Samusa didn't mind. She just wiped his face off and hugged him again.

"Uh w' go'ng 'o beh aw puh-weh'uh...." Freeza gave up on trying to talk when he couldn't get that last sentence out, having wanted to say 'I was going to be all-powerful...'. Then the other half of his face started to sag slightly and his right eye started to droop. He could feel the other half of his face going numb, and he could feel a new heaviness coming over his right side. He let out a groan that got Samusa's attention.  
  
"...Freeza!?" She touched his face, then looked around, "Strats! Get over here quick!"

Strats dropped what he was doing, ran immediately to Samusa's side and looked down at Freeza. He checked his vitals and said, "He's having the second stroke now..." And explained what was happening full out so that Samusa and Freeza could both hear. Freeza, although he couldn't speak to say so, would have wanted to know what was going on, and he was listening. What he heard struck fear in his heart. Of all things, he feared death the most. He feared it because he knew that he would wind up in Hell and spend eternity in pain.  
  
Freeza moved his hand while he still could and clutched his mother's. As soon as his hand touched hers, his right side went numb, and his hand slipped out of hers again. He was a prisoner in his own body, trapped in a shell that no longer moved. His heart raced and he started to pant because he was so scared. But Samusa was there, and held him close as she rocked slightly with him in her arms, giving him the best comfort she could. 

"I should go get King Kold and Cooler. Freeza might not be coherent after the next one. And if he's having this one now he could have the next one any time."

Samusa clutched her youngest son a little tighter in her arms as she looked at Strats and said, "Do it."

Strats bowed and rushed out. All Samusa could do was watch helplessly as her son went through his second stroke in her arms.  
  
  
  
King Kold was sitting in his throne, his elbow propped on one arm of the chair and his chin resting on his fist when Strats swept into the room and knelt down. Zarbon walked out, having to head to his home planet and inform them of what had happened earlier in the day. Cooler was pacing around, waiting for some news.

"Cooler, King Kold; your presence is requested in the medical bay. Freeza is having his second CVA as I speak. He may not be lucid if he has another one, so I suggest you go and say any goodbyes you want to say now. While he can still understand you."

Cooler looked over at his father, then at Strats. "Is my brother in pain?"

"I don't think so."

King Kold stood up slowly, his long cloak coming to rest against his back as he straightened to his full ten foot height. He was still refusing to believe that the heir to his throne was dying this way.

"I can't believe this is happening...." Cooler muttered as he crossed his purple arms and shook his head. "He's only half my age! Just barely finished his adolescence." He sighed and started walking out of the room, then turned back. "You coming?" He asked Kold.

Kold didn't move or answer the question as he stood there like a massive purple and blue mountain. He just glared at Strats with his arms crossed and his lips pressed together tightly.

"Dad! Freeza is dying and you're not going to even say goodbye? I can't believe you!" Cooler shouted in exasperation, then left the room and headed towards where his younger brother was.

Kold's stony silence stretched on, even after Strats and Cooler had left the room. He was wondering when he would wake up from this strange nightmare and find everything all right again.  
  
  
  
"Mom?"

Samusa turned wen she heard Cooler's voice. She smiled faintly, sadly, and motioned for her eldest son to join her at Freeza's bedside. Cooler obeyed and went to his mother's side, his gaze turning to his little brother. "He's awake. He just can't move anymore."

Freeza was lying in bed again, his limbs propped up on pillows for comfort. His left eye was shut completely and his right eye was barely open and looking in Cooler's direction. His face looked normal enough, just with no expression or movement. He couldn't feel anything anymore, not even the sensation of his own heart beating in his chest or the air as it moved in and out of his nostrils while he breathed. The only way he knew he was breathing was the sound.

Nodding, Cooler said, "Freeza? Hey, I'm here with you now."

Freeza's red eye turned to look up at Cooler, and he moaned as he tried to speak, but he couldn't make his lips move at all. His fingertips twitched the slightest bit as he tried desperately to move his hand. He closed his good eye for a moment and saw a vision of himself chained up, trapped inside a glass sphere and unable to break free no matter how much he screamed.

"It's OK, you don't have to talk. I know." He put his elbows on the edge of the bed so that Freeza could see him better and laid a hand on his younger brother's shoulder. "Don't mind dad. He's just being a dick as always."

Freeza snorted, the best he could do as a laugh. Samusa reached down and patted Cooler's back, chuckling slightly at his comment.

Becoming serious again, Cooler sighed and said, "Strats sure had bad news didn't he? Well...that's why I'm here. So I could talk to you while I still could. I'll handle your stuff. OK? Don't worry." He bit his lip and muttered a curse, then continued, "...Sorry I was such a prick when we were kids...and I never thought I'd notice it if you were gone. I was wrong." A tear fell from his eye. "I'm going to miss you, little bro." He put his hand on Freeza's, "Take care, OK? I promise that I won't forget about you."

A tear fell from Freeza's eye too, but he couldn't feel it, and watched as his older brother left his field of vision.. He would never know that Cooler had gone into his room and cried. Samusa reached down and brushed the tear away, lowering her face into his field of view and showed a comforting smile.

"I love you, my son..." She whispered as she took his hand gently in hers.

__

I love you too, mama. Freeza thought, unable to say the words. But he knew she knew that's what he'd have said back. Then he fell asleep; he slept through the night and long into the next day, awakening at the exact time it had been when he had the first stroke. The vision in his good eye started to flash and blur as another stroke began to make itself apparent. He let out an alarmed gasp, and Strats shook his head as he came to Samusa's side. Tears sprang from Samusa's eyes and she bent to touch her lips to Freeza's forehead.

"Be strong, Freeza. Please don't be afraid...I won't leave you." Samusa whispered into his ear as his vision became muddy and then slowly faded entirely until all he could see was blackness. "I'm right here, right with you...I won't leave you...my son. My little one..." Her words started to echo as if coming down a long tunnel, repeating endlessly.

Freeza felt like he was floating down in an elevator, into darkness and unusual sounds; he could hear his own heart beating. He could hear his mother's voice, he could recognize the sound, but now the words she spoke sounded to him like the gibberish that came from his mouth the moment he had the first stroke. He was no longer even aware of it when Samusa reached her arms down and hugged him to her chest, but he could recognize the sounds of crying.

It was like he was still in his own body, but looking down even further; Freeza could see himself all curled up inside a glass sphere with chains around his body, a gag in his mouth and a blindfold over his eyes. He was helpless, trapped and watching himself wither away like this. When he looked up, he could see two 'windows', and through them, he could see his mother. 

__

Perhaps I deserved this... Freeza thought bitterly.

"Samusa?"

Samusa turned to the door at the sound of the deep voice. "Kold..."

"How is he?" Kold's expression was stoic, his posture stiff. He was so big that he took up almost the entire doorway.

"He's having another one..." She looked down at Freeza's trembling form and bit her lip as tears flowed freely down her cheeks. "I don't know if he can even understand us anymore."

__

YES I CAN! I CAN HEAR YOU!!! I KNOW YOU ARE HERE!!! Freeza screamed mentally, trying to make his body move. The figure in the sphere just turned his head and shook it slowly. What must I do to make this all stop? He asked the figure, but the figure that looked like him had gone still again.

Kold walked to the bed and put a hand gently on Samusa's back, his eyes looking down at his youngest son. Freeza's eyes, both of them full of tears, were half open and staring up into nothingness. They glistened as if they were made of glass. His mouth hung partly open, his delicate lips looking dry despite the faint trail of saliva trickling from the corner of his mouth and his flawless teeth were showing slightly, peeking out from under his upper lip. His pale chest rose and fell slowly as he breathed.

Nobody is above brain damage from a stroke. Not even the mighty Freeza; and he was surviving beyond what any normal human would have been able to survive. 

"Freeza..." He whispered. This would be very hard for him to do, to admit that his youngest child was leaving him. He'd always thought that Freeza was too strong to be reduced to this. Seeing Freeza like this was like having a knife jammed into his heart, even though he wouldn't admit it. "Can I touch him or is that not allowed?"

"You can. I held him earlier." Samusa answered gently.

King Kold glanced around and uncrossed his arms. He reached down, placed his hands under Freeza's armpits and lifted him off the bed, watching his head slump back lifelessly, his helpless body seeming as frail as that of a newborn. Freeza, still conscious, groaned involuntarily as his father lifted him, slipped one hand under his rear end and put his other arm around him. Kold held his son like he was a sleepy toddler, his limp body slumping in his arms. The large Icejin didn't speak, he just held Freeza that way in silence, his eyes drifting shut as unbidden memories came to his mind. He hadn't held his children in so long that he had forgotten what it was like to show love to someone else. Including his own family.

"I can remember...when he was still so tiny, just able to walk...he used to let me put him on my shoulders and he'd hang onto my horns while I carried him around." Kold remarked quietly as he gently placed Freeza back onto the bed and settled a hand on his carapaced purple head. 

Samusa smiled sadly, "I remember that." She looked down at Freeza, taking his hand in hers as she rubbed his arm to keep it warm. "Once, that time when I was sick, he stayed with me and wouldn't leave. If I so much as moaned, he would sit up and ask me what was wrong."

King Kold nodded slowly and let out a long, drawn out sigh as he bent down and spoke into Freeza's ear, "I'm sorry I wasn't a better father to you, my son...please, if you can ever find a way...forgive me." Then he stood, withdrew his hand and left. Only when in the silent solitude of his own private quarters did he let his tears flow. He just leaned on the wall, shut his eyes and cried for the first time in a long while, having never expected the pain to be so overwhelming. _Why has this happened? I'm supposed to die first! Not my children. Not my son..._  
  
  
  
Samusa stayed with Freeza to make sure all of his needs were taken care of. She was about to follow Kold when Freeza started to groan. Each time he exhaled, he would moan. It was an odd, frightening sound. Strats heard the noises too and came over to investigate, touching Freeza's throat and putting a sensor on his chest to listen to his heart.

"What's happening to him, Strats?"

"Random vocal cord contraction. Like a twitch you get in an arm or a leg. It's not painful, and he can't feel pain now anyway...I don't think." Strats looked down at Freeza again with a look of disbelief on his odd features, "I'm amazed that he's still alive. Er...if he stops breathing or starts to have trouble, do you want him on a respirator?"

"No. No need to prolong his death." Samusa sniffed as new tears streamed down her cheeks. "We shouldn't hold him here when he decides he's ready." 

Freeza groaned again, over and over. Deep in his mind, he was wishing he could scream as he watched the figure that looked like him struggling against the bindings that held him. He was really the one controlling the moans, but he just couldn't control when they happened. All he had left was sound. It was like he was in the womb again, only hearing sounds but not understanding them. So he made sounds of his own just to see if he was still alive or not.  
  
Then a sound that he hadn't heard in years penetrated his consciousness; the sound of his mother's singing. The most wonderful, comforting sound in the world.

It was a lullaby about the spirit of an Icejin child, known as the Starchild, holding the world in his hands. About how that spirit had once been a man who suffered greatly because of his past. Of how he atoned for his cruel ways and regained his innocence. The song always ended with the spirit being sent back in time to be reborn as the Starchild.

Samusa's singing fell silent as she rocked back and forth with Freeza in her arms, just wanting to hold him and memorize the weight and warmth of his body in her embrace. It had been so long since she had been able to sing to him like this. She kissed his white brow and closed her eyes, pretending that he was only asleep and that he would be fine in the morning. The very idea that her youngest child was dying seemed like some nightmare joke that was being played.

"I should have stayed...I shouldn't have left you, Freeza..." She looked down at his pale visage allowed her cheek to rest on his armored scalp.

"Samusa. Go get some sleep. I'll alert you if anything changes. Please, for your own good. I have a bed set up just across the room." Strats whispered as he came to Samusa's side. "Please, so you can be in decent condition to handle things as they change. I will watch over him while you rest."

She sighed slowly, "Fine. If anything changes, you wake me up. Got it?" She said as she very carefully placed Freeza back onto the bed and brushed her hand against his cheek.

"Yes ma'am." Strats did a faint salute and sat down next to the bed while Samusa settled down on the bed across the room from him. Neither of them were aware that Freeza was in a deep conflict within his head.  
  
  
  
Freeza walked up to the sphere that contained his double and peered in. The figure didn't move at all or respond to his presence, not even when he put his hand on the edge of the sphere.

"Frightening isn't it?" Freeza heard a male voice say behind him and turned to see a hooded figure.  
  
"I fear nothing!" Freeza replied, clenching his pale hand into a tight fist. "THAT isn't me. I am me. I have no idea what THAT is." He found it odd that he could hear himself and the person speaking in his mind as well as in his ears.

"It's you." Said the hooded figure, moving slowly towards the sphere, so he could reach his hand right through the glass. He fired a weak ki blast that seared the figure inside, and the figure tried to scream, but couldn't. Freeza felt the figure's pain and grabbed his stomach, his ruby eyes flying open wide.

"Who the hell are you!?"

The hooded figure reached up and pulled his hood down. Freeza's eyes widened further and his jaw almost dropped when he saw the spiked hair; he saw a pair of smirking lips, dark eyes and an X shaped scar on the person's cheek. A Saiyan. It was a Saiyan. Freeza was so shocked that he reeled back and fell down. "B-Bardock!? But HOW!? I KILLED YOU!!!!!"

"You also killed me once too." A bald-headed figure with dots on his forehead came out of the shadows. "But I got wished back."

Freeza spun to face the human known as Krillin. "YOU!!"

A small Namek appeared and stood beside Krillin. Krillin looked down, "Hey Dende."

"Hi." Dende looked at Freeza. "You destroyed my home." As he spoke, Dende motioned to the shadows, and every Namek that Freeza ever killed stepped into the light. More Saiyans that died in the destruction of the planet Vegeta stepped into the light as well, and Freeza found himself in the middle of a huge mob of people. King Vegeta and Vegeta stood on either side of Bardock with their arms crossed. All of them surrounding him and the sphere.

Lightning started to flash all around, and Freeza was becoming frightened for the first time in an extremely long time. His tail twitched nervously and his eyes darted from side to side as he licked his lips and tried to keep himself calm. So far it wasn't working; he could hear his heartbeat increasing in speed.

"I see your synapses are firing off randomly." Bardock smirked as he looked up at the lightning.

"Huh?" Freeza looked up and saw another flash. Something like a tree branch was illuminated briefly. It wasn't a branch though, it was like a hollow clear tube that was full of water. There was something in it, like a blockage, allowing only a trickle to get by when it should have been gushing through. And that blockage looked like it was growing. Freeza could smell the liquid inside the tube. It smelled like his own blood.

"Not much longer till you have your next stroke." Krillin appeared from nowhere next to Freeza. Freeza reeled away from him.

"GET AWAY!!!!" He shrieked angrily, trying to gather enough energy to fire a ki blast. The moment he started to concentrate, a lightning bolt of pain shot through his head. He screamed, the figure locked in the sphere screamed, and lightning started flashing all around as the tube overhead ruptured. Blood started to rain down like rain in a rainstorm and the ground started to shake. Freeza grabbed his head in pain and screamed again as the figure in the sphere started to writhe.  
  
  
  
"Don't try and hold him down! You might break his arms! Let the seizure end first!" Strats shouted at his technicians. "This stroke is really screwing him up now. By Kami!" He tried to take Freeza's vitals, but he was convulsing too much.

Samusa awoke at all the yelling and saw her son convulsing on the bed, his eyes rolled up in his head and foam flecking his black lips. Technicians were working all around him. Someone had moved the cloth between his legs by mistake, and they had to deal with the fact that he was urinating all over them, the bed and himself. He was moaning and shrieking, his breathing raspy and noisy. 

"What's going on?!" She cried. "Is this supposed to happen!?"

"He's having a seizure. Apparently this stroke is interfering with his body's ability to control when it should move and when it shouldn't. I don't know WHAT is keeping him alive at this point. But he should have died long ago." Strats answered quickly as he injected a heavy dose of an anticonvulsant drug, just managing to jam the needle into Freeza's wrist long enough to give the injection.

"My baby..." Samusa got up and stood at the foot of the bed with one hand over her mouth, her expression horrified as tears streamed freely down her cheeks. "Oh, Freeza..."

By the time the violent seizure had ended, the technicians found themselves stepping into the puddle Freeza made. They seemed apprehensive about going near him again and getting wet. 

It got on Samusa's nerves very quickly, "Oh for Kami's sake!" She sneered at the technicians as she marched up to the bed and lifted Freeza, not minding that he was still leaking and some of it was getting onto her. Being a mother, she was obviously used to things like this. "I'll clean him up since the idea of touching urine seems so poisonous to you. I want this bed ready when I get back." With that, Samusa made some orders for a warm bath to be drawn, and in less then a minute, the order was carried out.  
  
  
  
"Get away from me!" Freeza screamed as he pushed through the mob of people, trying to get away from them and away from the blood that was raining down on him; he was vaguely aware of the fact that he could no longer smell the blood. But the mob followed his every move as if they knew he was going to make it before he did. He noticed that the lightning had stopped flashing as the sky took on a faint blue glow, just barely noticeable. Freeza looked back, his ghostly white face and scalp plate stained red with blood. "WHAT DO YOU WANT!??!!"

"Admit it." Bardock said, suddenly appearing in front of Freeza. Freeza screeched to a halt in mid air and tried to fly to the left, but there were people there. There were people on the right as well, surrounding him in all directions.

Freeza dove at the ground and landed there, exhausted and panting. He turned his head and could see the chained-up figure inside the sphere. How it had gotten there, he had no clue. There was a faint thump off to the left, and Freeza turned his head to see Vegeta standing there, smirking with his arms crossed.

"Oh, poor little Freeza. Afraid of a little blood bath? You certainly weren't when you destroyed my home planet!" His mocking tone turned angry and then became quiet, "You fear your own blood, and yet you love it when you see someone else's. I bet you never saw the faces of the INNOCENT people you murdered. Well LOOK NOW!!!! LOOK REAL DAMN HARD FREEZA!!!!" Vegeta pointed his white gloved finger at a group of Saiyans. Women held infants in their arms while older children clutched each other. Old hunched-over men and women huddled together. All of them had their gaze fixed on Freeza. He watched some toddlers as they played together with some toys or chased each other. Things he himself never got to do because he was always being taught to fight. Things he would have wanted to do.

One beautiful little three-year-old girl with vibrant eyes and beautiful black hair walked over to Freeza and looked up at his face. She smiled sweetly at him, as if she didn't know he was an evil killer that showed no mercy when he took lives.

King Vegeta came up behind Freeza and said, "It was all lovely until you did THIS!" He pointed to a smoky mist that turned into something like a movie screen. Freeza watched himself form that huge deathball and send it crashing into the planet Vegeta.

The little girl that was looking up at Freeza screamed and burst into flames as a spark caught her clothes. She screamed and cried out for her mother, a mother she didn't have because Freeza had killed her. Freeza started to scream too. Not because the fire frightened him, but because he could feel the little girl's pain as she burned alive at his feet. The flames jumped to his flesh and started burning in endless pain, but it didn't affect his skin at all, and the blood that rained down quickly put the fire out. But the little girl burned until she was only a scorched husk on the ground.

Freeza fell onto his hands and knees as the pain ripped through the core of his being. The little girl's voice rang out in his mind, asking him why he had hurt her, and he could do nothing to shut out her pleas.  
  
  
  
Samusa finished gently toweling Freeza down with the same towel she'd used to dry herself off when she realized he had a fever again. Apparently the hot bath had risen his body heat, so she moistened a cloth in cool water and brushed it over his white face to cool him down. 

"How is he doing, mom?" Cooler asked from his place in the doorway. His blue carapace was shimmering in the overhead light, his face expressionless.

"He's still alive...if you want to call this alive..." Samusa wiped tears from her eyes, "He just won't let go..."

Cooler came further inside so he could see Freeza. Freeza's eyes were closed and fluttered occasionally when reflex forced them to. His jaw was relaxed, his mouth hanging halfway open; he wasn't drooling anymore because that part of his body had shut down, so his mouth was completely dry. The only thing keeping his delicate lips from becoming chapped was Samusa occasionally brushing a moist cloth over them.

"Freeza...?" Cooler asked as he put his elbows on the bed and looked down at the pale body lying before him, "Hey, it's Cooler..." 

Freeza gave no response to his brother's presence, save for the sound of his quiet breathing.

Reaching over, Samusa carefully brushed her hand over Freeza's forehead and watched his brow furrow. Her hand lingered on his cheek for a moment before moving to the back of Cooler's head and then away. "He can't understand us anymore...Strats says the last one destroyed his cognitive function."

"And you believe them!?" Cooler growled, looking over his shoulder at his mother.

Samusa nodded slowly as one of the technicians came to take Freeza's vitals and put a light sheet over his legs to preserve his dignity. "He's awake, Cooler. He can hear the sounds of our voices and feel our touch on his face. We have to believe he still knows we're here." She leaned forward a little, "Talk to him. Even if your words don't reach him, your voice will."

Cooler swallowed as he nodded, looked down at Freeza and brushed his purple knuckles over the edge of his pale jaw. Freeza's only response was to open his eyes and roll them sightlessly, as if searching for the source of the touch. Cooler saw that and flashed back to the times when he would watch Freeza sleep as a baby, the way he looked so tiny and helpless. Then he snapped himself back into the present and closed his eyes. Freeza looked just like the helpless little thing he was when he was born, and it scared him.

"Stop fighting with yourself...you're only going to get worse if you hang around, Freeza." Tears stung in his eyes and Samusa put her hand on his back comfortingly, drawing him close. "It's not fair..." He whispered.

"It never is." She replied solemnly. "Never is..."  
  
  
  
Freeza flew as fast as he could to escape the angry mob, his pale flesh now thoroughly covered in his dark crimson blood. But once again they caught up to him and forced him to dive. All of them were surrounding him and not even shooting blasts at their faces was enough to make them disappear.

"Murderer!" Some of them shouted.

"Fiend!" Others shouted. Some more were calling him things he'd never heard of before. 

Freeza backed away from them all as their chanting changed, "Admit it. Repent. Admit it. Repent. Admit it..." It kept coming in a monotone as each and every person glared at him with gazes that could freeze supernova explosions and melt polar ice caps. "Admit it. Repent. Admit it..." The burnt corpse of the little girl stood up and joined the chanting.

The angry Icejin covered his ears and squeezed his eyes shut so he didn't have to see or hear it. He couldn't shut out the droning sound of all the voices, and each chant they made pierced into his soul like daggers. He felt someone grab his neck from behind and lift him off the ground. When he opened his eyes, he was staring into the face of King Vegeta as he held him over a pool of his own blood. King Vegeta smirked as he dropped Freeza into the pool and held him under so he couldn't surface.

"Do you like the taste of your own blood!? DO YOU LIKE IT!??!!! IF YOU LOVE TO SEE BLOOD SO MUCH THEN YOU MUST LOVE THIS BLOOD AS WELL!!!" He screamed as he held the struggling, frightened Freeza under. Flurries of bubbles surrounded his mouth as he tried to scream, his ears filling with the strange chanting from the people once again. King Vegeta finally pulled him up and held him upside down by the tail so he could kick him relentlessly in the ribs. "How do you like it Freeza? How do you like being helpless?" He jeered between kicks.

Battered and broken, Freeza struggled weakly until King Vegeta dropped him unceremoniously onto the ground and went about stomping on his spine. The beaten and exhausted little alien tried to crawl away, moving slowly on his hands and knees as he coughed up his own blood. 

For the first time in his life, Freeza was terrified. He was so terrified that he curled up into a ball, sobbing like a small child as King Vegeta kicked him a final time in the back of the skull and then left him to lie there.  
  
"SOMEBODY MAKE IT ALL STOP!!" Freeza screamed as his tears mingled with the blood caked on his face. The ground under him started to shake again as glowing red cracks tore through it. Flames shot up from those cracks as they widened, and heatwaves rippled through the area. Scorching heat billowed up and turned the world as hot as the core of a blue super-giant star.

The ground where Freeza was curled up started to cave in, and he screamed in terror as the piece of land he was lying on broke free. 

A hand shot out and grabbed his wrist before he could fall. Freeza looked up towards the person that saved him, and found himself looking up at Bardock. The flames illuminated his face and made frightening shadows play about the scar on his cheek.

"Please...make it stop..." Freeza sobbed weakly.

The chanting droned on in the background as Bardock spoke, "Only you can make it stop, Freeza. Only you have that power."

"How!?"

Bardock's lips moved as he joined the chanting that was going on all around, his voice mingling with the endless drone of other voices, "Admit it. Repent..."

"Admit what?" Freeza cried.

"That the evil you caused was wrong. Apologize for it all. And you'll be free." King Vegeta said from the left.

"And what if I don't?" Freeza bore his teeth, their flawlessness now stained by the blood that was raining down.

"Then he drops you down there." Vegeta said from the right, pointing to the searing flames.

Freeza looked down and saw something so violently disgusting he felt his jaw fall agape with horror, and it was hard to horrify someone like him with violence.  
  
He saw an endless landscape of dead bodies and rivers of blood, all ablaze with malevolent blue and white flames. He saw the sphere containing his helpless double shatter, spilling the screaming being into the fiery pit. The flames didn't burn his flesh, but he could feel the pain. Freeza felt it too; he started to scream horrendously, his screams growing louder when Bardock started to release his grip on his hand.

"Doesn't look nice does it?" Asked Dende from somewhere behind.

"Don't wind up there." Krillin added in.

"Make your choice, Freeza. Repent, or spend eternity in the flames of your own hate." Bardock said calmly, his grip relaxing further. Freeza gritted his teeth silently and the fire below flared dangerously. When his silence stretched on, Bardock relaxed his grip fully, and Freeza tried to grab his hand again. 

He failed.

The Icejin screamed a high pitched cry as he fell towards his own hatred, his skin starting to ignite as the awful flames licked at him. The searing pain he was feeling was like none he'd ever felt before, and it was getting worse.  
  
  
  
"Strats, is he supposed to have this high a heartrate?" Samusa asked when she noticed the monitor showing Freeza's heartrate was way higher than normal. Sometimes he would sob, pant or groan, and each time he did, the monitor above his bed would go haywire.

"Tachycardia. His body is trying to make up for its failing ability to keep oxygen moving. See how he's starting to become cyanotic?" Strats slowly came up beside Samusa and put a hand on her shoulder while pointing to the paleness moving through Freeza's fingernails. They had gone from black to gray. "Is there anything I do for you?"  
  
Samusa nodded and looked down at her son. "Take all these monitors off him. Take all the machines away from him. All of it...he doesn't need them so why are they here?" She gestured to the seemingly endless tangle of IV tubing and wires that led to monitors or IV bags all around the table.

Strats nodded and motioned for some of his helpers to come over. They all carefully removed the IV needles and detached wires from Freeza's small body as it lied helpless and still on the bed. Samusa put the blanket back over him as soon as they finished and glanced at Cooler, who'd fallen asleep with his head on the bed. She didn't notice Kold standing in the doorway, watching as this went on.

"What do you think he's experiencing? Do you think he's dreaming?" She asked, mostly rhetorically as Strats wrote a few things down.

"He might be...there's no way to tell," He heaved a sigh and lowered his clipboard so he could see Freeza's terrified eyes. "I don't know what's keeping you alive anymore, sir. Whatever it is, I hope you can resolve it soon." 

Freeza was still falling and screaming, flailing his limbs as lightning and fire tore at him, causing him more and more pain. He landed in the midst of a blue flame and found himself tied to a metal cross, the molten hot metal searing into his back as fiery spikes impaled his wrists and feet from behind. He cried out as he looked up again and saw Bardock standing over him with a burning sword in his left hand.

"Say it!" Bardock cried as he put the sword's sharp point against Freeza's chest, right over his heart. "SAY IT OR SPEND ETERNITY FEELING ALL THE PAIN YOU CAUSED TO OTHERS!!!"

When Freeza remained silent, Bardock started to push the sword in, and Freeza felt new pain added to the agony he was already in as the blade burned into his heart. Tears and snot boiled on his face as he screamed the kind of screams that would give a grown man nightmares for the rest of his life. "AAAAAHHHH!!! AAAHHH-AAAAHHH!!! AAAAUUUUGHH!!!!!"

"This is only hurting you because of all the hate you have in your heart, Freeza...and THIS is how you make others feel when you torture them!" Bardock pushed the sword in further and twisted the blade, causing Freeza to convulse like a worm on a hook as blood poured from his flaring nostrils and screaming mouth. "THIS is what you really feel and refuse to face!"  
  
"NO!!!!" Freeza screamed back and arched his neck in pain that made him start to sob like a small child, "YOU LIE!!!! LIES!!!! ALL LIES!!!!!"

"You're the one that's lying!" Bardock pulled the sword's blade out of Freeza's chest and stared into his eyes. "Feel your own heart, Freeza. _Feel_ it…"

The Icejin gulped in repulsion as the blood gushing from his chest and the tears streaming down his face froze solid. His breath came out in a foggy mist each time he exhaled, and solid sheets of ice filmed over his eyes. He started to shiver when the ice bled out of the wound in his chest and snaked all over his skin until he was trapped within a frozen cocoon that was too small for his claustrophobia to withstand.

Instead of keeping the heat at bay and muffling all outside sounds, the ice seemed to defy all logic and _magnify_ it. He could hear the people in the background droning, the crackling of the fire on Bardock's flaming sword and the sound of his own whimpering. The heat of the fire burning all around seared him like an ant under a magnifying glass, forcing another cry from his throat.  
  
Then the frozen wall over his chest SHATTERED as something flaming hot was thrust down into his body to fill him with another layer of agony. His desperate screams shook the icy chrysalis surrounding him to no avail. Tears froze over his eyes before they could escape. His lungs were aching from the effort of breathing and hollering.

"How do you like the real you, Freeza?" Bardock gave the sword another twist, "How do you like the agony of your own selfishness and hate? Where's your pride now? Huh!? WHERE!?" He jerked the blade sideways, deaf to the screams it brought forth, "I'll tell you…it's gone! The only thing keeping your own hate from consuming you was your pride! Now that it's gone, you're nothing! NOTHING!!!"  
  
Bardock's words tore at Freeza just as forcefully as the sword. It hurt because he was right. All the hatred, rage, ice and agony was coming from him, not Bardock or the others. He didn't want to believe it. He didn't want to accept it. Now it was all hitting him full-force, all because he didn't have the courage to face it while he was able.

"Make it stop...pleeeaaaase....pleeeaaase...no more...please, no more..." His agonized voice rang out pitifully, "I don't want to hurt anymore..." He sobbed, and a dull white glow flickered around the sword's blade piercing his pale bloodstained chest, "Forgive me..."

"Louder! Mean it!" Bardock twisted the blade and pushed it in until the sharp point exited Freeza's back. The flames from the sword spread out and roared under the ice to sweep over his helpless body.

"...please…please…." The pain started to register, "…FORGIVE ME!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAUUUGHH!!! PLEASE!!!!!" Freeza screamed as the fire tore through him again and seared every nerve he had. It made him scream for his mommy and daddy and thrash around like a fish out of water. Not even the most excruciating mental or physical pain would ever come _close_ to comparing to his agony. 

"Again!"  
  
"AAAHH!" His entire life flashed before his eyes, and he saw all the agony he caused others. "AAAUUGHH!!" He saw the faces of the victims and their families, and the regretful tears continued freezing over his eyes. "I'VE LEARNED MY LESSON!!! AARRRGH!!! I WAS WRONG!!!" 

"LOUDER!!!"

The glow in his chest brightened until the ice around him was lit up from within, "I'M SORRY!!! JUST MAKE THIS STOP!!! PLEASE!!!! I GIVE UP!!!" He shrieked like a frightened child as the cracks appeared all over his frozen prison, "I SWEAR WHAT I SAY IS TRUE!!! I'LL CHANGE!!!" Light engulfed the ice as he squeezed his eyes shut, his cries coming louder, "I'LL CHAAAAAANNGE!!! I'LL BE GOOD!!! PLEASE, JUST LET ME GO!!! PLEASE!!! AAAAH!!! AAAAAHHH! AAAAAAA-HAAAAUUGGHHH!!" 

The frozen from cocoon shattered and exploded to send ice shards in all directions. The flaming sword stopped burning, though it remained impaled in the sobbing Icejin's chest.

"Do you mean it?"

Still bawling at the top of his lungs with his face red, eyes squeezed shut, his brow drawn into a frown and his lower lip curled down from crying so hard, Freeza managed to shakily whisper, "Yes…"

Bardock smiled with tears in his eyes, slid the sword out of Freeza's trembling body and pulled him close with his free arm. "I forgive you..." He dropped the sword and put his other arm around him, embracing him fully. "I forgive you, Freeza." He repeated.

Freeza buried his face in Bardock's shoulder and sobbed until he was exhausted. He didn't care who held him anymore, just so long as someone's arms were around him. 

Above them both was a white shape with feathered wings. The angel came spiraling down towards the ground and landed without a sound. It was humanoid with hooded eyes and antennae, features identifying it as a Namek. He had shimmering ruby eyes and a face that was pretty without being feminine. His well-built form and glittering wings glowed in contrast with the darkening surroundings.

"Ah, welcome, Shiroi." Bardock looked up from Freeza's briefly unresponsive form.

Shiroi bowed and folded his wings, "Thank you." He looked down at Freeza and smiled slowly, "I guess I got through to him after all…"

Many years ago, Shiroi had appeared to Freeza, warned him of what his own evil deeds were doing to him and taken him to see his past and his future. There were two futures, both of which ended in a premature death. Both were violent and filled with terror, but one had a peaceful outcome.  
  
Shiroi's warning allowed Freeza to prevent Zarbon from going after the Dragon Balls when Vegeta had stolen them. He went after them and the password himself, only to have his efforts thwarted by that damned Super Saiyajin. He made the decision to save his neck by leaving Namek with the vow to return when the fools from Earth had gone home. While taking off from Namek, Freeza realized his left eye was all blurry and his power level was weaker than it should have been. 

Twenty-four hours later, the ship ran out of fuel, and that left only two options: make a quick landing on an unknown planet to get more, or risk using the emergency supply to get home. Freeza didn't want any part of his father, so he opted for the fuel resources. Three hours after landing, he had the stroke.

Now he was here.

But why?

Freeza came around when he felt someone kiss his brow, instantly stopping all the pain and healing the wounds on his body. His eyes drifted shut while Bardock's gentle arm withdrew from around his body. He was so exhausted and weak that he didn't have the strength to say he was still cold. 

"Yes, it looks like he did." Bardock responded to Shiroi's previous comment, "He will have more questions…"

"I'll handle it." Shiroi nodded quietly to Bardock and came forward to lift Freeza off the cross as if he were a small child. He settled down on the ground and wrapped his wings around the shivering Icejin to surround him in a blanket of delicate feathers. Because of their identical skin coloring, was hard to tell where Shiroi ended and Freeza began.

"So weak...why?" Freeza croaked after a time, his lips barely moving to form the words. "Why...this weakness?"

"You're very strong, and the only way to make you listen was to break your walls down by weakening your body. It was the only way to expose your pain and scars. Then we had to force you to face it and atone so the ice in your heart would melt." Shiroi extended a delicate hand, grasped Freeza's wrist and placed his palm on his chest.

Freeza blinked and looked down at his hand on his own chest. It felt different than it had ever felt before. "It's...it's warm!"

"Yes." Shiroi looked down patiently, "It is the beginning."

"Beginning? Of what?" Asked Freeza.

"Your destiny." Shiroi smiled a childlike smile and helped Freeza to stand. "All you have to do is let yourself go and leave everything behind." He laid a hand across the top of Freeza's head like a father might do to a child and continued, "You have already done away with the hatred in your heart. That is the first step." Then he stepped back, spread his arms and squatted down as if to leap straight up into the air. A line of white light appeared down the center of his body and spread rapidly outwards until he disappeared.

Freeza stared, "Huh?" and blinked again as a white dove cooed and flew away. "Hey!" He chased after the bird, only to stop when he realized something was different; he couldn't remember how it felt to hate. The memory of hatred was there, but the feeling escaped his ability to understand. As if the hatred were an object he left behind and would never see again. He could remember what it looked like, but its texture was long gone.  
  
By then, everything had become a smoky gray mist with lightning occasionally flashing overhead. Everywhere Freeza looked was different shades of gray. The sky, the ground...everything. He forgot all about the dove when he spotted a shape in the distance, illuminated by the faint lightning. He walked over and saw his 'twin', the figure that had been trapped in the sphere, lying in vibrant color on a gray slab. The figure no longer had on a blindfold or a gag, but he was still chained down. He stared upwards with lifeless eyes, his mouth hanging open partway. The figure turned his empty eyes to look at Freeza when he came closer.

"Who...or what...IS that!?" Freeza asked himself aloud as he peered down at the person.

"It's you." Bardock came out of the darkness to stand at Freeza's side. Unlike the surroundings, he wasn't gray.

"I'm me!" Freeza placed a hand on his own chest.

"And so is he." Bardock pointed to the helpless figure on the slab. "Body." He pointed to Freeza. "Soul."

Freeza looked confused as he reached down and touched the figure's face, able to feel the touch on his own cheek. He heard footsteps and looked up to see the mob that had been following him earlier surrounding him and the figure on the slab. For a moment they blocked his view and chains rattled faintly. Then they moved aside.

The figure on the slab was free of the chains now, but there was something different. He wasn't full-grown anymore. He had changed into a helpless newborn so small and premature that an adult Icejin could hold him in the palm of their hand. 

Freeza blinked as he reached down and took the tiny child into his arms. In a few blinks of an eye, the figure had returned to adulthood, and yet he had no weight at all. Freeza put the him down without releasing his shoulders. The figure responded by grabbing his shoulders in return, and for a moment, the two identical beings stared at each other.  
  
  
  
King Kold was standing at Freeza's bedside, taking Samusa's place so she could sleep. He was glad she left when she did, because Freeza had a massive seizure right after she left. A seizure so powerful it ripped beyond the paralysis to make his body thrash as if electrocuted. The whole bed was so soiled afterwards that the technicians had to change the entire mattress.

Ever since the seizure, Freeza's breathing had been weak and his fingertips were darkening from white to gray. He stopped responding to touch, and Strats was beginning to suspect his sense of hearing was gone as well.

Cooler had fallen asleep again, slumped over the bed with one hand clutching his little brother's. Having just returned from a planet with days lasting as long as a week when the news of Freeza's stroke reached them, he was exhausted and couldn't stay awake any longer.

Kold let Cooler sleep as sat down next to the bed and took his son's tiny white hand for the billionth time in an hour. He began remembering the time when Freeza was small enough to fit in his palm. That had been so long ago… 

Freeza's eyes fluttered and rolled sightlessly to fix onto the ceiling. A low whistling noise sounded in his throat as his third lung, the bladder-like sac below his heart used solely to breathe in space, began to fill with air. Since he obviously wasn't heading up through a thinning atmosphere, the inflating of his third lung could only mean he was about to die.

Kold noticed the sound and elbowed Cooler awake. "Cooler, go fetch your mother." He said in a whisper as he lowered a large hand across the top of Freeza's head. "Quickly!"  
  
Cooler peeled his eyes open to look at Freeza, saw the change and blinked. "Right away, father." He nodded, hurried out and returned a moment later with Samusa at his side.  
  
"What? What's happening?" Samusa asked as she came in and looked down at Freeza on the bed. She sat down and put her hand on his cheek, turning his face towards her so she could see him better. His blurry eyes gazed back at her sightlessly, and his face held no expression. "Freeza...?" She took his delicate hand and rubbed it between both of hers, trying to massage the warmth back in.

Kold's reply came in a flat tone as he put his hand on Samusa's back, "His third lung just inflated."

Samusa nodded and leaned down to kiss Freeza's pale brow. "We're all here with you now, Freeza. The suffering is almost over..."   
  
  
  
"I can't leave him. I'm supposed to live forever!" Freeza whispered as he clutched his double in his arms.  
  
Bardock laughed out loud and pointed at the helpless figure with a scarred finger, "You're a fool if you think you need that to live forever. This reality is all you'll know if you keep holding onto your useless body."

Freeza looked down again at the figure and felt his nervous system come alive. He could see his mother, father and brother surrounding him. He could feel Samusa's warm arms around his body, the touch of Kold's strong hand on his shoulder and the brief pass of Cooler's knuckle across his cheek. He could hear the sound of murmurs, sniffs and his mother's singing.

The figure's eyes fluttered shut and the visions faded. His head fell back and the feel of embracing arms faded as his hands slipped away from Freeza's shoulders. The lullaby echoed to silence when he exhaled with a click and a whispered moan. The figure slowly went still and faded to gray like the rest of the area. 

Freeza's eyes widened and he shook the colorless being in his arms, gently at first, then harder. "Wake up! Don't go! Wake up!! No...please, no...you must wake up..." He whispered as he clutched the motionless form to his chest. He looked up and noticed the lightning flashes were growing fewer and further away. The misty grayness faded until it was all dark.

A single ray of light shone down on Freeza and his 'twin'. The pale light illuminated the faces of the other people and Bardock as they came closer with welcoming smiles and raised eyebrows.  
  
"Yes, that's right. You're doing it." Vegeta told Freeza as he stepped up next to Bardock.  
  
"There's nothing to be afraid of now, Freeza. The pain is over and will be over for good if you let go of that body the way that body let go of you." King Vegeta stepped up on the other side of Bardock.

"He has nothing left to give." Dende pointed to the body in Freeza's arms.

"It's time to end it, Freeza. Know when to quit." Krillin came into the light. "You've come so far and been through so much. Wouldn't you like to rest?"

Freeza looked down at the figure again as Bardock reached down and put a hand on his shoulder. Very slowly, he slipped his hands off the figure's shoulders and hung onto his arms, his hands sliding down until he was holding the figure by only the fingertips. 

"Let go, my son." Bardock whispered.  
  
Freeza obeyed and allowed the hands to slip from his grasp, watching as they fell limp. Before he could think, he was sucked backwards and upwards. He was slammed through a barrier of light, and with a loud 'shloop!', he was floating near the ceiling of the medical bay. 

He saw King Kold's blue armor plates and twin horns, Cooler and Samusa's identical skull structures, and someone else. A small and pale shape with blank red eyes was cradled in his mother's arms. It seemed so foreign and unnatural that it took him a moment to realize he was staring down at his own body.  
  
  
  
Strats scribbled something down on his chart and took Freeza's hand to feel his wrist for a pulse. He looked to the rest of his family and spoke solemnly, "He's leaving us." He gazed pointedly at Kold as he lowered Freeza's tiny hand back where he lifted it from, "If there is something that needs to be said, say it now, before his spirit leaves this world for good. I'm going to leave you alone so you can say your farewells in private." His voice choked on the last word. Then he walked out and disappeared into the corridor.

"My baby..." Samusa started to sob quietly, using the nickname she'd always used with Freeza when he was young.

"My son..." Kold added quietly, closing his eyes. "Freeza...I...have always been proud of you..." his voice faltered and fell silent, but his words surprised the other two sitting beside him.  
  
Cooler reached over and brushed his knuckle over the side of Freeza's face, "Brother..." Tears filled his dark red eyes. "I'll miss you."

Freeza gave no response, not even a twitching of the eyelids. His skin had turned more white than it already was, and his extremities were all ice-cold to the touch. The fluid pouring uncontrollably into his lungs thickened, making him gurgle each time he breathed. His body became rigid from lack of oxygen and pre-death spasms.

Samusa put her hand against the top of his head, leaned down and kissed his brow. Then she turned her head and rested her cheek where she'd just kissed him. She touched his face gently with one hand, slid her other arm under his shoulders and held him close. His glistening armored head remained stiffly in place, even while nothing was supporting his neck from underneath. 

"Just...let...go..." Samusa whispered, "You have to. There's nothing left for you here. So say goodbye to us and go..." She closed her eyes and sobbed quietly, suffering the pain that any and all mothers feel when they have to watch helplessly as their offspring die in their arms, "Oh...my little one...I love you..."  
  
Kold reached out to put one hand on Samusa's back and the other on Freeza's shoulder, unable to keep tears out of his eyes as one escaped down his cheek. Even Cooler was swallowing the endless lump that had formed in his throat as he watched his mother trying to rub some warmth back into his little brother's dying body. 

Freeza's breathing slowed and became more strained, but his eyes seemed to gain focus and fix on the faces of his family. Or was it just another twitch? Could he, after everything but his brainstem had stopped functioning, still be aware?

Cooler didn't know what to think. He stood frozen like a statue, watching as death tightened its hold on his sibling. He felt King Kold's hand come down onto his shoulder and squeeze, and looked up to find his stone-faced father looking on with the slightest tremor in his lower lip.

__

My son... Kold thought silently, as if his thoughts would be heard, _I never imagined it would come to this. Never imagined I would lose you this way..._  
  
Samusa closed her eyes, but kept holding her dying child protectively close. "Go to sleep, Freeza...just close your eyes, let go and sleep..." She lowered her lips to his ear and began to sing the Starchild lullaby, hoping it would ease his journey into the unknown.  
  
Freeza seemed to respond to his mother's voice. The paleness in his lips spread to the black lines running down each cheek. His tense muscles relaxed as he took a silent breath and exhaled noisily. The trembling in his lips ceased, his eyes grew dull and a look of peace fell across his face. There was a soft click as the valve leading to his third lung opened, allowing the air stored inside to whistle gently through his nose and mouth like a long, murmuring sigh.

Samusa felt a sensation like the ocean's tide rushing out, a feeling exactly opposite to the one she felt when Freeza was born, and she knew it was over. Tears slid down her cheeks as she pressed her black lips to Freeza's pale brow, cupped the back of his head with her palm and guided it to rest on her shoulder. "Good night, my precious little one..." 

After that, nothing and no one moved as a stillness settled over everything. Freeza was like a sculpture in Samusa's arms, slumped over in her lap with his head on her shoulder and his hands in his lap. The Icejin woman seemed frozen in time, clutching her youngest child close to keep him warm as his ki dwindled down to nothing.

Nobody moved when Strats entered the room and silently walked over to Samusa. Before he could even reach over to touch Freeza, she lifted her head, opened her eyes and met his gaze. "Don't touch him yet, please. I know what you're going to say..." She started rocking the still form in her arms and sniffing as more tears streamed from her eyes. "He's gone...my baby's gone..."

Cooler turned his head away from everyone so they wouldn't see him start to cry, but the shaking of his shoulders gave him away. Strats nodded and reached down, gently passing a hand over Freeza's eyes to close them. He didn't know what else to do, so he left them alone, squeezing Cooler's shoulder briefly as he passed.  
  
Samusa continued to rock Freeza in her arms. Silent tears of sorrow and hope blazed down her cheeks. "My sweet baby…I love you…" She spent another few moments holding him close before carefully laying him on the bed. Freeza appeared to be asleep, his face calm and his lips curved slightly upwards into the natural faint smile that only appeared when he was completely relaxed. "He's so peaceful now."  
  
King Kold hadn't seen Freeza look that way since the day his mother had left. The evil was gone from his face; the sneer, the frown, the narrowed eyes...it was just gone. Kold bowed his head and put his hand against the top of Freeza's head as he realized he himself may never get to feel that sort of peace when he passed on. "Yes..."

"Where do you think he went?" Cooler asked without taking his eyes away from Freeza's face. Kold raised his head to look at his oldest son.

"He's probably in this room and watching us, saying his own goodbye. Then he will return to the stars from which all things are made." Samusa answered in a trembling voice as she pulled the blankets up around Freeza's peaceful frame and folded his hands on his chest. "He's immortal now...nothing can touch him ever again. Not even time."

King Kold's cheek twitched and his horns gleamed as he turned his head. He was numb inside. Confused. Didn't know what to feel. His gaze wandered briefly to the ceiling as of to catch the traveling spirit's exit even though he knew souls were invisible. _Freeza…I can't believe you're gone…_  
  
  
  
"Goodbye..."

Freeza felt tears running down his face as he watched his family surrounding his lifeless body. They had all cared and never shown it. Well his mother hadn't been around to, but it was clear that she hadn't forgotten him through all the years they were apart. He had never seen his brother cry before, and had never, EVER seen his father even give the faintest hint of sadness.

Grief knows no evil.

"Come, son. Its time to go." Bardock placed a hand lightly on Freeza's shoulder and looked down at him as Vegeta, King Vegeta, Krillin and Dende walked back into the crowd that surrounded them.

Freeza blinked up at Bardock and pointed to King Kold, "That is my father. So why are you calling me your son?"

Bardock chuckled and knelt down to be eye level with Freeza. "Because you are, my child. So is your father, your brother, your mother and all of them," he indicated the crowd of people all around, some of them rising towards a swirling vortex that had appeared in the middle of the ceiling. "They are all your brothers and sisters...everything..." Bardock stood up again and started rising towards the light.

Everyone else had gone into the tunnel except for Freeza and Bardock. Bardock was about to head in when Freeza stopped him.

"Wait...all of them are my brothers and sisters...everything?" He scratched his upper lip in thought and blinked. "...You're not really Bardock, are you?"

Bardock, or the person that appeared to be Bardock, smiled. "Very observant, Freeza. I knew this face would get your attention. The face of an enemy always does." He turned to the light once again and was almost inside, but Freeza called out to him once more. 'Bardock' patiently stopped and looked down again.

"Why did you put me through what you put me through?" Freeza asked, turning to peer at his family as they surrounded his lifeless body. King Kold was silent, Cooler staring at the floor and Samusa was rubbing his shoulder in comfort.

The person that appeared to be Bardock smiled warmly. "I had to test you, Freeza. If you had been truly evil, you wouldn't have begged to be forgiven and admitted you were wrong. Even while being faced with Hell."

"But...anybody would beg for mercy after experiencing that!" He paused and then asked, "So if you're not really Bardock, then who are you?"

'Bardock' lifted his eyes to the vortex and smiled as he began floating into its expanse. His reply came as, "Oh, as someone I know well often says...'If I told you now, it would ruin the mystery'."

Freeza blinked at the confusing reply and watched as 'Bardock' disappeared into the swirl. He took a deep breath, sighed and fixed his gaze on his family one last time. Then he allowed himself to be sucked up into the shimmering vortex that got brighter with every twist and turn. The brighter it got, the more he became a part of it. Then the world became whiteness that wrapped around him like a loving embrace.

He eventually opened his eyes to the most glorious starry sky he'd ever seen. Everywhere he looked was awash with light, color and love. Even the ground was glowing, a shimmering path leading out into the universe.

A bit overwhelmed, Freeza followed the path and realized he was leaving a set of white footprints. He looked closer at the path he was walking on and realized it made of trillions upon trillions of footprints, all of them belonging to people that had walked the same journey he was walking now. 

The Icejin blinked, knelt down and picked up a handful of the white glow, which became like shimmering glitter in his hands. He smiled and tossed it into the air, watching it turn into a ball of glittering light that streaked across the sky. "Wow!" 

"That's what dreams are made of. Now someone will have a wonderful dream tonight. Just because they saw a shooting star." The figure that looked like Bardock said, his voice somehow carrying to Freeza's ears. He spotted him standing over a hundred yards away, looking down off the path and into the endlessly starry sky.  
  
Freeza didn't say anything as he walked over and stood next to the figure that appeared to be Bardock. "Who are you, really? Tell me."

"As I said before, you already know that answer, Freeza." 'Bardock' reached down and tapped his fingertip against Freeza's forehead, "Look in here and here." He moved his hand and pointed to his heart. "Hey, do you still remember that lullaby your mother sang to you all the time? The one about what you secretly hoped to become?"

"Of course...I never forgot it..." Freeza stared at him for a long time as what he just said slowly started to process through his mind. "But how did YOU know that dream? There's no way...unless..." He stared up into the man's black eyes, saw the beginning of Time and stepped back with a gasp, "Y-you're...?!"

The person that looked like Bardock nodded and started to laugh heartily as the stars all around became streaks and light began to seep over his outline. "And now it's time to make your dream come true."

Freeza's eyes grew huge and his mouth fell open as the light of a Being more awesome and beautiful than anything he had ever seen reflected across his pale face. His gaping expression was lost in the glare, and he could feel new power awakening within him as the light engulfed him.  
  
  
_Love -   
Devotion_

Everyone was asleep. All except for King Kold, who had caught a glimpse of a shooting star that originated from somewhere near the Milky Way.

The large Icejin just couldn't sleep, a feeling in the back of his mind telling him that he still had something to do. He didn't know what it was until he realized that he'd wandered down to the medical bay where Freeza's body was still lying, wrapped completely in a purple sheet to keep prying eyes from staring. Kold almost laughed when he realized where he was. Not because it was funny, but because he'd done the same thing the night when Freeza was born. The only difference was that Freeza had been small enough for a full-grown Icejin to hold him in the palm of their hand because he was a premature infant. The large Icejin could remember how angry he had been at the discovery Strats had made at Freeza's birth**:**

__

Feeling -   
Emotion...

***"Well?" Kold barked, wanting Strats to get on with it.

Strats jumped and started to speak, "Freeza is very premature, as you very well know. But I also made a few interesting discoveries about him as well." He paused and looked over at Freeza. "It would seem that although he is male, he was born with female reproductive organs as well as male ones. The male organs are the dominant ones, however..."

"You mean to say that my son is a he-she!? A freak!?" Kold growled.

"No. As I said, his male organs are the dominant ones. He has a uterus and ovaries, but no vagina." He glanced down at his clipboard again, then looked up again. "When he grows up, he may have some secondary sex characteristics; he might be smaller then most, have a more feminine look and shape, his voice may not get very deep or even change at all...but only time will tell those things."

"So he's a girl with a dick." King Kold crossed his arms, his anger growing rapidly that such a thing could happen in his family. "I guess he can't have kids either?"

"Kold!" Samusa hissed angrily as she rocked Freeza in her arms, "No matter what he is, he's our son! Don't speak of him that way!"***

__

Don't be afraid to be weak  
Don't be too proud to be strong

Kold's eyes glittered as he looked down at the purple sheet covering his son's body. He reached down, grasped the corner and lifted the soft material, uncovering Freeza's face and shoulders. His lips and the line running down each cheek had turned a dark gray-purple from blood settling, and his eyelids had a faint purple on them. Other than that, he appeared to be very deeply asleep. 

Sitting down, King Kold looked out the window while placing a hand on the top of Freeza's head, the carapace having grown cold to the touch since there was no body heat left to keep it warm. _Samusa is right…he does look 'precious' like this._ He mused sadly.  
  
_Just look into your heart my friend_

The awkward silence stretched on as pools of distant starlight fell upon Freeza's peaceful, feminine visage. 

Memories were flooding Kold's mind, memories of days long past. Days wasted and full of things left too often unsaid. Thinking about them only stabbed his wounded heart deeper.

__

That will be the return to yourself  
The return to innocence.

Samusa had heard Kold walking around and followed him into the closed medical bay area. She placed a pale hand on the doorframe and watched him as he sat by Freeza's side, staring out the window. Why was he there? What was he doing? What was he thinking?

***Freeza was asleep, curled up among the purple blankets that he was swathed in. His tiny, delicate hands were just poking above the top of the blanket and resting on his cheeks as his little black lips smacked occasionally while he dreamed.

Glancing around, Kold reached down and lifted the infant into his large hands. Freeza awoke when he was moved, but he didn't cry. He just stretched, yawned a huge yawn and babbled up at his father. 

When his son did that, the mighty King Kold's icy heart melted just a little, and a smile played about his black lips. Just knowing that he was holding his own flesh and blood, so warm and alive, in his strong hands. He sat down slowly as he held Freeza, speaking in soft undertones that soothed him back to sleep.***

The memory was so vivid.  
  
_You were so tiny that day…you always were a little on the small side…_Kold slowly turned his face away from the window and looked down at Freeza once again. He lowered his hand to the still form's pale chest in a futile attempt to find a heartbeat. Of course, there was none, but there was something in its place. It shocked him so much that he jerked his hand away and gasped.

Samusa could no longer stand the tension and stepped out of the shadows. "Kold?"

To Kold she looked like an angel rising out of ashes to be at his side. He still loved her, always had, and seeing her there in the dim light only seemed to ignite the old flame in his heart.

"Kold? What is it?" She asked again.

__

If you want, then start to laugh  
If you must, then start to cry...

King Kold placed his hand back onto Freeza's pale chest, turned his expressionless face towards the woman and replied with two simple words, "It's warm…" Then the lines on his face deepened, his expression contorted and he started to cry, "His heart is warm! It's warm!" He sagged back into the chair he was sitting in and sobbed with tears blazing down his aged face. "It's so warm…why is it warm? He's dead! The dead have no warmth!"

__

Be yourself don't hide...   
  
Samusa watched her ex-husband's walls crumble in the presence of another for the first time. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his thick neck, drawing him close to her chest while stroking the back of his head. "His heart is warm because he loves you, Kold." Her fingertip followed the familiar line on the back of his neck, a movement of comfort.

"I killed him…" Kold's lip quivered, but his tears and sobs had stopped. For a moment he forgot about being a warrior, a king and a hard-hearted man. His heart was open as wide as a canyon and pouring out all its pain. "I never told him, never showed him… I never - "

"_You_ didn't kill him." She cut him off by covering his lips with two fingers. "And he knew. That's what he's telling you now. He always loved you, just as I have." Her eyes met his and brimmed with tears, "I think it's time to put the past behind you. Forget vendettas, forget the people you're angry with. Otherwise you could wind up the way Freeza did, and that would kill me too."  
  
_Just believe in destiny..._  
  
Samusa moved to get up after she had said her piece, but Kold's strong hand wrapped around her wrist, preventing her from leaving.

"Samusa, don't go. I don't ever want to have you out of my site again." Kold brought his hand up under Samusa's chin, tilted his head and kissed her. The same warmth he'd felt on Freeza's chest was present on her lips, and it filled him in its comforting embrace.

Taken by surprise, Samusa instantly melted into the heat of his lips and wrapped her arms around his neck once again. She had missed feeling him so close, yet it felt as if they had never been apart.

__

Don't care what people say  
Just follow your own way

"Then I'll always be here." She whispered when the kiss ended and they stepped apart.

Kold stared into her eyes, then turned and fixed his gaze on Freeza's face. He didn't want to let go, he didn't even want to face the fact that his youngest son, who was still just a child, was gone. "I don't know what to say, Samusa…what do I tell him that he doesn't already know?"

Samusa reached down, picked Freeza's blanket-clad body up with the same gentleness she used when he was born and handed him to Kold. "Tell him 'goodbye'."

__

Don't give up and use the chance  
To return to innocence.  
  
***"I apologize for getting angry." Kold whispered to the sleeping baby, not caring that he couldn't be understood right now, "You are what you are, and nothing can change that. You are my son and I will care for you." He brought Freeza close and held him against his chest, which was bare at the moment since he didn't have his armor on. "I'll care for you..." He whispered as he rubbed his small newborn son's back with one finger.***

The large Icejin lifted his head and took the pale shell of his son into his arms, holding his head with one hand and the rest of his body with the other arm. There was no weight at all, as if Freeza was hollow inside.

"I miss you greatly, little Freeza." Kold whispered hesitantly and glanced up at Samusa. The tears returned to his eyes just as fresh as the first time, "You were what you were, and nothing could change that. You were my son and I was proud of you." He brought Freeza close and held him against his chest, letting his head come to rest against his shoulder. "I never told you, never showed you...but I loved you..." He whispered into the silence as he rubbed his back. "Goodbye, my son..."  
  
Samusa extended a pale hand to touch his arm with a soft, sad smile. "And now our baby can finally go home…" She leaned up and kissed Kold's brow. "I'm going to go see if Cooler is still awake. You stay here with Freeza a little longer, until you're ready."

With a flick of her tail, she was out of the room and entering Cooler's personal quarters. Cooler was curled up on his bed with a data pad under his hand. His soft breathing immediately alerted Samusa to the fact that he was asleep, so she crept forward and carefully slid the pad out from under his palm.

"Uhh?" Cooler's eyes popped open and a yawn forced his mouth to gape, "Mom? What's up?"

"Oh! I'm sorry, did I wake you?" Samusa sat down on the edge of his bed and pulled the blanket up to his shoulders. She couldn't get over how much he'd grown since the last time she'd seen him. He had taken on the appearance and build of his grandfather, especially with the dark purple skin.

"No, I was meditating." Cooler lied with a wry smile.

She nudged him for his humor and let her hand come to rest on his shoulder. "Your father and I are going to get together again, Cooler. He said he doesn't ever want me to leave his sight again." Her head turned slightly and her armor plate flashed, "I think Freeza's fate was meant to bring us together and end the hatred. The pain of his loss united us all, and it was a warning about how precious life is."

He smiled; she could always make him smile. "Hey, Mom?"

"Hm?"

"You know that song about the Starchild you were singing earlier? Could you sing it again?"

Samusa squeezed Cooler's shoulder and lowered her face to kiss his brow. Then she scooted closer so he could settle his head in her lap and began to weave her haunting lullaby.  
  
  
  
Somewhere above the Milky Way galaxy, a being stirred unseen within its luminous womb of brilliant light and music. It knew nothing but the feeling of serenity into which it was formed. It could hear the rhythm of the universe like a buzz that reached into the core of its being. It could feel the lives of other living things beginning and ending like vibrations that reverberated across the eons.

He had ceased to exist, yet he wasn't dead. He was conscious and had all of his memories. Memories of where he had been, where he was and where he would go. All he needed was a thought, and he had the power to enter any moment between moments. The past, the present and the future were all like pages in a book that he could turn to whenever he wanted. He knew all of Time's secrets and tricks. How it worked to create and destroy. The way it wove so intimately with space to bring about mysterious and gradual change. Its ability to snap like a whip to snuff out one era and make way for another. 

Like it had for him.  
  
_That's not the beginning of the end..._  
  
The whirling light brightened until it rivaled the luminosity of Creation itself. A new heart began to beat, the sound echoing within every mother's lullaby. Something flickered into being, a tiny beacon in a sea of white. It grew stronger until, finally, it gave off its own glow. A glow visible in the dreams of every unborn infant in existence.

And then, the universe gave birth with a loud gasping whoosh. The divine light stopped expanding and started to swirl gently around the outline of a transparent gray sphere. The glass bauble was scintillating with the entire history of a small world. Stories about how it was created, how it will end and everything in between.

That's the return to yourself...  
  
More light gave way to reveal the small white hands of a child just old enough to stand up and walk cupped protectively below the sphere. Protecting it like a jewel of incomparable worth given as a gift from a loving Father whose reflection lay hidden in the shimmers passing across its smooth surface.

__

The return to innocence.  
  
The brilliance parts like a curtain to offer a glimpse of the newborn Starchild as he lowers the shiny bauble away from his face, lifts his head and opens his eyes to peer at you with ruby orbs that glitter with reflections of the universe's most treasured secrets. His miniature black lips stretch into a smile of infinite wisdom that seems to say this is only the beginning. Then the light brightens and shrouds him from view once again as he prepares to try out his new powers.  
  
_That's the return to innocence_...


End file.
